samba - Aug 2009 - Can't open shares using netbios names

I need a pointer to what Fine Manual I should go read to set up my 
netbios name resolution, because all my attempts to use netbios names 
are being resolved against dns ...

I have one subnet (192.168.2/24), with several Fedora 11 machines and 
several Windows XP machines, and a couple SMB/CIFS NAS units which also 
share printers. No domain, it's all just a workgroup. The WinXP machines 
seem to be working just fine ... but, I can't connect to anything using 
smb with names from the Fedora 11 machines.

I can do nmblookup <windows server name> and I get back the IP address 
of that server, looking like this:

[wstidolph at bunter plugins]$ nmblookup synology
querying synology on 192.168.2.255
192.168.2.104 synology<00>

I can do smbclient -L 192.168.2.104
and I get back the shares list.

I can mount a share using
mount -t cifs //192.168.2.104/public /mnt/testing

and then the share is mounted just fine

But, if I try to use the *names* then I get a very long delay and a 
failure .... this does not work:

smbclient -L synology  (nor does sbmclient -L //synology)

The Nautilus browser will let me browse into my workgroup, will list all 
the servers ... but as soon as I double-click on one of the servers to 
navigate into it, I get the same long delay and failure. The failure 
usually is a timeout or has an NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED attached to it, 
and it will be from an external IP address - in this case, an IP address 
associated with synology.com. So I see that there's something amiss with 
my (netbios?) name resolution.

I have enabled wins support in smb.conf.

In /etc/nsswitch.conf I have tried
hosts:      files wins bcast dns

What's next - do I have to hardcode the names into an lmhosts file?

   -- Wayne

Responding to myself - I stripped out the use of wins support and name 
resolve order from smb.conf, and took out wins frmo nsswitch.conf hosts 
line, and waited for a while ... and it started working. I wonder if I 
was making changes too fast and not giving caches time to clear?

   -- Wayne

On 08/15/2009 06:17 PM, Wayne Stidolph wrote:
> I need a pointer to what Fine Manual I should go read to set up my 
> netbios name resolution, because all my attempts to use netbios names 
> are being resolved against dns ...
>
> I have one subnet (192.168.2/24), with several Fedora 11 machines and 
> several Windows XP machines, and a couple SMB/CIFS NAS units which 
> also share printers. No domain, it's all just a workgroup. The WinXP 
> machines seem to be working just fine ... but, I can't connect to 
> anything using smb with names from the Fedora 11 machines.
>
> I can do nmblookup <windows server name> and I get back the IP
address
> of that server, looking like this:
>
> [wstidolph at bunter plugins]$ nmblookup synology
> querying synology on 192.168.2.255
> 192.168.2.104 synology<00>
>
> I can do smbclient -L 192.168.2.104
> and I get back the shares list.
>
> I can mount a share using
> mount -t cifs //192.168.2.104/public /mnt/testing
>
> and then the share is mounted just fine
>
> But, if I try to use the *names* then I get a very long delay and a 
> failure .... this does not work:
>
> smbclient -L synology  (nor does sbmclient -L //synology)
>
> The Nautilus browser will let me browse into my workgroup, will list 
> all the servers ... but as soon as I double-click on one of the 
> servers to navigate into it, I get the same long delay and failure. 
> The failure usually is a timeout or has an NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED 
> attached to it, and it will be from an external IP address - in this 
> case, an IP address associated with synology.com. So I see that 
> there's something amiss with my (netbios?) name resolution.
>
> I have enabled wins support in smb.conf.
>
> In /etc/nsswitch.conf I have tried
> hosts:      files wins bcast dns
>
> What's next - do I have to hardcode the names into an lmhosts file?
>
>   -- Wayne
>
>
>
>

Am Sonntag, 16. August 2009 03:17:41 schrieb Wayne
Stidolph:
> I need a pointer to what Fine Manual I should go read to set up my
> netbios name resolution, because all my attempts to use netbios names
> are being resolved against dns ...
>
> I have one subnet (192.168.2/24), with several Fedora 11 machines and
> several Windows XP machines, and a couple SMB/CIFS NAS units which also
> share printers. No domain, it's all just a workgroup. The WinXP
machines
> seem to be working just fine ... but, I can't connect to anything using
> smb with names from the Fedora 11 machines.
>
> I can do nmblookup <windows server name> and I get back the IP
address
> of that server, looking like this:
>
> [wstidolph at bunter plugins]$ nmblookup synology
> querying synology on 192.168.2.255
> 192.168.2.104 synology<00>
>
> I can do smbclient -L 192.168.2.104
> and I get back the shares list.
>
> I can mount a share using
> mount -t cifs //192.168.2.104/public /mnt/testing
>
> and then the share is mounted just fine
>
> But, if I try to use the *names* then I get a very long delay and a
> failure .... this does not work:
>
> smbclient -L synology  (nor does sbmclient -L //synology)
>
> The Nautilus browser will let me browse into my workgroup, will list all
> the servers ... but as soon as I double-click on one of the servers to
> navigate into it, I get the same long delay and failure. The failure
> usually is a timeout or has an NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED attached to it,
> and it will be from an external IP address - in this case, an IP address
> associated with synology.com. So I see that there's something amiss
with
> my (netbios?) name resolution.
>
> I have enabled wins support in smb.conf.
>
> In /etc/nsswitch.conf I have tried
> hosts:      files wins bcast dns
>
> What's next - do I have to hardcode the names into an lmhosts file?
>
You have to hand out your wins server IP to the clients with a dhcp directive 
such as "netbios-name-server IP-OF-WINS", or enter it manuylly in
smb.conf for
the fedora clients ("wins server = IP-OF-WINS" in global section)

Am Sonntag, 16. August 2009 03:17:41 schrieb Wayne
Stidolph:
> I need a pointer to what Fine Manual I should go read to set up my
> netbios name resolution, because all my attempts to use netbios names
> are being resolved against dns ...
>
> I have one subnet (192.168.2/24), with several Fedora 11 machines and
> several Windows XP machines, and a couple SMB/CIFS NAS units which also
> share printers. No domain, it's all just a workgroup. The WinXP
machines
> seem to be working just fine ... but, I can't connect to anything using
> smb with names from the Fedora 11 machines.
>
Because winxp defaults to broadcast name resolution unless configured 
otherwise.
You need to tell the IP address of your wins server to the clients.
For windows, that's done via the "netbios-name-server IP-OF-WINS"
directive in
your dhcpd.conf if you use dhcp, or under network/tcpip/advanced/wins options 
otherwise.
For your fedora clients, you may be lucky with the dhcp directive as well, but 
rather enter a "wins server = IP-OF-WINS" into the global smb.conf
section.